In Which Balin Feels Old
by Malicean
Summary: Kivrin was kind enough to let me play with her boys again. This time something to fit with the Children of the Lonely Mountain, inspired by a line from Chapter 5.


_No pastiche was intended in the beginning, but, well, I read too many _Children of the Lonely Mountain_ stories, these last few weeks and it shows. May I cite: _imitation is the sincerest form of flattery_?_

* * *

The shock of the Burning and the stress of their hunted existence afterwards have turned his hair a snowy white before he's forty. Balin doesn't quite realise, how much it changes people's perception of him, until an elderly lady witnesses him interact with Dwalin in a park (they are checking if it's safe to let the wee ones have a family outing there) and promptly starts commiserating about today's youth's impossible taste of fashion and general lack of respect for their elders.

It takes him minutes of nodding politely (_mustn't be remembered for being uncouth_), before Balin realizes that she's mistaken his younger – not exactly conservatively attired – brother for his son. Dwalin, who has good ears and, for all that he _likes_ to thinks with his fists, is anything but stupid, catches on, almost before Balin does, and puts on a great show of dutiful son.

Once they are out of earshot, though, Dwalin doesn't stop laughing until well after they're home. He spends the rest of the week calling his older brother _'Pa'_, and even teaches the wee ones to call him _'Grandpa Balin'_. Thorin is about to put a stop on it, but Balin tells him not to bother. He _is_ the oldest of the group, if by about a decade, not a generation, there's little chance that he will ever have grandchildren of his own, and hearing five-year-old Kíli call him _'Grampa'_ is more heart-warming than he cares to admit.

Plus, the pretence of a doting grandfather with his grandchildren allows the boys outings under a level of obscurity none of the others can provide, an obscurity that keeps them safe. Even on school days, he can take them out of the house regardless of the time, and get away with a kindly, if slightly weary, smile and a "they just moved in, will start school on Monday, but for now they just need to get out from under the movers' feet."

Oo oo oo oO

He's starting to feel each and every year of his alleged age, by the time the boys are twelve and ten. Fíli is starting to go crazy about pretty much anything electronic, Kíli is just boundlessly curious about _everything_.

The latter is a definite boon in tutoring the boy – everyone is pitching in to make sure they do not grow up uneducated, each to his area of expertise, but the more formal subjects are usually left to Balin, starting when he all but accidentally taught them literacy by reading their favourite books to and with them – but it can lead to terrifying results, too.

The boys are enjoying, what is promising to be one of the last pleasant days of autumn, in the overgrown garden of their latest residence. Balin is happy for them – and considers himself fortunate, too; there's little they can offer two lively teenagers in terms of indoor entertainment, given circumstances, and they do not take well to being stuck inside, growing bored easily, these days. And a bored Fíli and Kíli is a terrifying thing, indeed.

He has taken his eyes off them for no more than a minute, when there's a hiss and a shriek that has nothing human in it, and when he looks up in horrified anticipation, both of the boys are wreathed in flames.

His heart seizes.

For a moment he cannot move, cannot even breathe for the pain in his chest, before he sees both patting frantically at the other, more concerned about the fire hurting their brother than themselves. Then, he forces frozen limbs to obey him again and rushes over, mentally cataloguing options, depending on how serious their injuries are.

Not at all, he finds to his immense relief, except for some reddened patches, like a bad sunburn. Thank heavens, they are in one of their reoccurring 'wanna be like Uncle Dwalin' phases, and the scuffed leather jackets have saved most of their skins. Still, most of their hair is singed away and for one selfish moment, Balin finds himself wishing that his brother was in town. Except for the tall Fundinson, he knows no other that can hold a Thorin roused to protective fury in check, long enough to talk him down.

For that, however, he will need a proper explanation, and so, once he has satisfied the need to crush their scrawny, singed figures against his chest, smothering the last of the embers and encouraging his heart to start beating again, he rounds on the boys. "Fíli! Kíli! What on earth were you doing?!"

Kíli, whose gleaming eyes show that he considers the sudden conflagration to be an unexpected but by no means undesirable outcome of the experiment and is just itching to see if he can reproduce it, starts rattling off ingredients. Balin recognizes two thirds of a gunpowder recipe, before Fíli elbows his brother in the ribs.

"It was an accident, we didn't mean for it to …go off like that," the elder sibling proclaims, truthfully but no less misleading. Balin tries a bit longer, but they have learned deflection all too well, these last couple of years, and so he sends them off to put some towel-wrapped ice against their singed faces, waits until they are out of sight and slowly crumbles to his knees.

The press may call them terrorists, occasionally, but the _Sons of Durin_ have never murdered a soul, not even on their blackest days. Yet, young minds are impressionable, and terrorists _do_ bombings and the boys have been taught that their family is in the right, no matter what the law says – did they follow that thought to its logical consequence? Breath-taking desperation claws at his heart, again, this time not fearing for the children's life but for their souls.

He keeps kneeling on damp leaves, praying to whatever entity might listen that they haven't turned their brightest hopes into the very sort of monster they are fighting, until the boys find him. Now, suddenly, they are terrified for his state of health, when they weren't for their own, and in their anxiety, it all spills out. They were trying for fireworks; Guy Fawke's Day is approaching rapidly, after all, and the display they've seen in Inverness, last year, has left quite the impression.

Balin pulls them into a bear-hug, laughing with a relief that borders on hysteria – and terrifies the children even more – and that is how Thorin finds them. Fíli all but faints with relief, gushing out a rapid-fire explanation that boils down to: _I think we broke him, Uncle Thorin, we didn't mean to, honest!_

It's mortifying, and the sudden look of alarm in their leader's eyes is worse. Balin picks himself off the ground, hurriedly, pulling the boys up with him.

"It's nothing," he growls gruffly, "the wee ones gave me a good scare, is all."

Thorin doesn't look much reassured and something snaps.

"I'm not an invalid!" Balin all but shouts, "You should be more worried about your sister-sons, they set themselves on fire, after all!"

Predictably, the dark blue eyes grow wide, then furious, and Balin feels ridiculously better as the target of Thorin's ire than his pity.

He adds a more detailed explanation, while their leader checks on the boys, to make sure his nephews are uninjured, but Balin doesn't mention the word _'explosives'_ and the conclusions he has drawn about that, until after Thorin is satisfied that the boys haven't taken serious damage and sent them off for their standard punishment, that is to scrub down that pallid green monstrosity masquerading as a car, that inexplicably holds such a place of high regard in the eldest Oakenshield's heart.

Thorin grows pale at the thought, but then he dismisses the possibility, like he occasionally does, when something doesn't fit into his view of the world and Balin feels a stab of worry about him, too.

The weight of responsibility makes him feel old, older than even his hair colour proclaims.


End file.
